The present invention relates to safety closure caps for sealing containers designed particularly to impede access to the contents of the container by children. The safety closure cap has particular application in connection with containers for pharmaceuticals, medicines, household cleaners and so forth where it is desired particularly to keep children from gaining access to such contents.
There are many designs for container closures including, for instance, the container closure described in Swiss Pat. No. 556,274 where the closure cap is threaded for securing to a container having corresponding thread segments for receiving the closure cap. Such container closure cap is easily opened by means of a simple turn for disengaging the threaded cap from the threaded segments of the container. However, it is frequently desirable and in some cases a regulatory requirement for certain products such as medicines and pharmaceuticals to have containers equipped with a closure that is not easily opened in order to restrict access to the product, to children for example. A conventional safety closure cap includes a twist-on cap having an opening in its thread portion for alignment with a corresponding opening in the threads at the mouth of the container. In order to open or to remove the cap from the container the corresponding openings of cap and container must be aligned and the cap removed by lifting upwardly. In order to increase the difficulty of turning the cap, the closure is also equipped with cams which keep the cap in a secured position. In order to unlock the cap from the secured position a certain resistance has to be overcome. However, such mechanical resistance is of little advantage as it can easily be overcome in the hands of children.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to container closures which provide excellent security against opening by unauthorized people and it is the task of the invention to avoid the disadvantages of container closures over prior art.